No, this is not a post about the tensions between South and North Korea. Nobody here is worried about that. When there is a storm, we Dutchmen are also not afraid of flooding just because we happen to live below sea level, aren’t we? While the whole world is in panic, here the day-to-day life continues as normal. Exemplary for this contrast is the amazement of some foreign media, when they could not find a South Korean citizen in a total state of panic for an interview on the current situation. The fear instilling role some media like to play, couldn’t be played this time.

This is a post about the sense of security that you have if you live here. Of course bad things do happen here as well, but much less than in Europe. The social security (or the feeling of being safe) is very high because everywhere and at any time people are outside, so you never feel unsafe (not that I felt unsafe in the Netherlands). It seems that people here are more honest to each other and treat each other better than in Europe. Trust in each other is also very strong.

Sometimes this kind of trust surprises me and my fellow foreigners. Recently I was in a restaurant with a buffet. At the table next to me a couple sat down and they laid their wallets and latest Samsung Galaxys on the table. After that they walked away together to get something to eat, leaving the wallets and smartphones on the table with nobody there to keep an eye on them. When they came back after 5 minutes everything was still on the table. Can you imagine a similar situation in the Netherlands (or Europe for that matter)?! I also heard stories of fellow foreigners, who got their lost wallets mailed to them with the contents completely intact. At my university laptops are being abandoned in study halls and libraries while the students go for lunch.

Sometimes bad things do happen, as a chat with some of my fellow students at lunch confirmed. They were expressing their amazement about nothing ever getting stolen in this country, when a girl in our group told about her negative experience in Korea. She had traveled through the whole of South America and nothing happened. In Korea though, after she had fallen asleep between an older man and woman in the back of a bus, she tried to get off at her stop when her wallet was suddenly gone. Stolen, she says although no Korean believes her when she tells this story. “Stolen? No, you mean lost,” she gets to hear everytime. And thus the myth that in Korea nothing ever gets stolen, continues.